Posthuman Blues

Remember "V," the 80s television phenomenon starring Mark Singer and fascistic aliens? I was crazy about "V" when it was on, although I recall being let down by the TV series that followed the original miniseries. I enjoyed "V," in part, because it made pretty good use of its budget restraints to make the aliens seem familiar and intelligible. The insides of the alien motherships, for example, were like spotless, labyrinthine warehouses: places one could actually go.

At the time, "V" was supposed to be a science fiction retelling of Nazi Germany. Now I find it a prescient glimpse of the Bush Regime. (I'm not the only one; nut-case David Icke thinks that world leaders actually are lizard-like alien entities in human disguise.)

Anyway, I bought the original miniseries on DVD and am waiting for a good time to watch it. Oddly, I could almost root for the Visitors if their shocking secret agenda wasn't so damned stupid: to drain Earth's oceans and process humans into the reptile equivalent of beef jerky. Viewers are expected to accept that an advanced interstellar race would do something as inefficient as steal water from a cumbersome planet rather than from a passing comet.

As aliens, the Visitors are failures. But as kitsch, they're sheer genius.